Sydney barrister and author

My generation rejected death as a viable option, except for those who embraced it full frontal, by their own hand, with a dropping syringe, an empty bottle and a full bath, preferably with a naked blonde. We were going to live forever, or die in the attempt.

In the reality of the new century, baby boomers have become baby doomers and the concepts of death and dying have become an almost daily reality. We are tending to our dying parents and, in sharper focus, tending to dying friends and siblings.

Not so long ago, nearly everyone died at home surrounded by family and loved ones. Then hospitals replaced homes as a place to die. Hospices replaced hospitals.

Only 20 per cent of citizens die at home; 80 per cent express the wish to do so.

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The charity LifeCircle offers family members, friends and community a way of connecting with people in Australia to live well, right to the end. Volunteer mentors, telephone counsellors and community ambassadors support the grapevine of family and friends to wrap around the dying, to help people flourish through the latter stages. LifeCircle wants to bring them home as much as possible.

We are not born alone. We are surrounded at birth by our mother, doctors, nurses, family and midwives. Everything about birth can be true about death. Both are cathartic, traditional; one soul slips into a body at birth, that soul slips out at death.

LifeCircle's ambitions are to give all the care, comfort and common love we have at birth to the dying person, to reflect the journey that person has had in life and to ensure, as far as possible, that we can die with dignity, care and compassion. Mentors are available to help us track down the facilities and carers and possibilities that are all there in our communities, and only need to be pulled together.

My Irish tribe was great at funerals and wakes, but the business of the end of life was heavy going. Grandfather received the last rites, a number of times, as he kept getting better and going home. Perhaps he was dehydrated and the sprinkle of holy water was all he needed to restore his health. Extreme Unction was the papal equivalent of a presidential pardon for all crimes committed through life - a VIP backstage pass to eternal life, a get of out jail card and a former-MP toll-free card. Why a 78-year-old man in frail health needed to have one every time he went back to the Mercy hospital confounded me. What sins could he commit at home on Townsend Street?

We fear death so much, we call it something else: falling off the twig; meeting your maker; calling it a day; giving up the ghost; calling it quits; passing away; kicking the bucket; departing; croaking and so on. LifeCircle envisages our communities creating a system of midwives for the dying, where caregivers, family, friends and the fading themselves can call in aid - the mentors, nurses and ambassadors - who can put grieving people into the position they ought to be. At death, we should be addressing the dying person's wishes, wants and needs, not our own. It's all about them. What do they want? Where do they want to die? If it is at home, LifeCircle will help arrange it.

Pain management and palliative care can be transported in many cases. We are surrounded by at least one member of our family at birth - completely surrounded until our actual birth. The same can be true if we face death as a reality - something not to be feared, but faced - and we can ensure the soul departs the body in the least painful, least melancholy manner.

A death shared is a life affirmed. Every life leaves a mark. LifeCircle wants to ensure we don't brush it away, but buff it up, so that the spirit flows as the soul slips away.

Twenty-one grams is supposedly the weight difference between the time that person goes from living to death. If we all come together we can carry that weight.

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